


IKEA High School Host Club

by bluebeholder



Series: When All Else Is Lost, IKEA Still Remains [4]
Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Gen, I Don't Know What To Do With Myself?, IKEA, This Is Not Crack?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 14:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7687636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haruhi takes the Host Club on a field trip to IKEA. Things go about as well as you might expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	IKEA High School Host Club

**Author's Note:**

> _DO YOU KNOW HOW WEIRD IT IS TO WRITE AN IKEA-FIC THAT IS NOT ABSOLUTE CRACK_
> 
> Anyway, here's your Host-Club-in-IKEA tale. I totally forgot about “Kyoya’s Reluctant Day Out!” when I started writing this. I guess the difference is that he’s awake this time? And he has his wallet? And it’s IKEA not a mall?
> 
> While you're reading, you should check out check out [these](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeYJFtPlo2o&list=PL99B01ACC3C9DE8CE&index=1) [two](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3IbwaCEDVs&list=PLA6739881FA0AF7ED&index=1) playlists, which compile all the music of Ouran. According to my beta, the music immensely improves the reading experience. :)

It was a perfectly average day in Music Room #3; which is to say that all the hosts were acting like extras in a bad Dada film. Today, with a theme of “Interior Designers”, was particularly strange.

Somehow, Tamaki had contrived to make it into a melodramatic, romantic scene. He held court among the girls, handing out flowers and trinkets and kisses, spinning fantasies of how he would...decorate…their bedrooms. Kyoya, with his few but obscenely dedicated clients, discoursed on the merits of large stained-glass windows and how beautiful the girls would look framed in such a window along with their favorite host (only ¥35,447.82, proceeds directly to the Host Club). Honey had building blocks and played at building elaborate miniature cities with his clients. The artifice of “accidentally” knocking over a structure and sobbing every now and again sufficed to draw out the cries of “KAWAII!” and “SO CUTE!” from the girls. And, of course, Mori’s sudden appearance on the scene—dressed authentically as a construction worker, with heavy boots, a tool belt with real tools, a bright yellow hard hat, and no shirt—would complete the tableau. The twins bickered merrily on a scaffold, constructed by Mori just so that they could lounge about while they pretended to paint the wall. A dropped paintbrush or a slight fall was cause for Hikaru to flutter romantically about Kaoru, while Kaoru blushed and tried to play it all off as “embarrassing” and “no big deal”. 

And Haruhi? As the most junior member of the Host Club, she was relegated to hauling furniture around all day, rolling and unrolling rugs and shifting tables so that there was the illusion of actual interior design work happening here. 

Mori helped—when he wasn’t picking Honey up out of another tumble—but, even so, the furniture was hard to move. Kyoya had brought in massive hardwood cabinets with doors inlaid with mother-of-pearl and tiny gems, chairs of solid ebony upholstered in hand-embroidered vintage petit-point, vast sofas of silken mahogany with cushions whose horsehair came exclusively from horses that won the world’s best steeplechases, tables of real California Redwood with ivory panels…it was a dragon’s hoard of huge, heavy, elaborate, expensive furniture. Music Room #3 really just looked like a furniture showroom for billionaires, rather than a Host Club.

As she dragged another huge sofa into a new configuration, Haruhi paused to wipe the sweat out of her eyes. “These damn rich people,” she muttered.

With his usual stellar timing, Tamaki crashed onto the scene. “What was that, my darling?” he asked, sprawling gorgeously across the couch Haruhi was trying to move.

Haruhi straightened up, granted a reprieve from her labors by Tamaki’s sudden attention. “This all seems a bit excessive, Senpai,” she said, waving her hands around to indicate the whole overdressed music room. “I mean, who needs all this furniture? Isn’t it expensive?”

“We can spare no expense for our beautiful clients!” Tamaki exclaimed.

“Besides,” Kyoya said, appearing out from behind a cabinet, “most of this furniture was donated by family members for the upcoming parent-teacher conferences. We’re only borrowing it.”

Tamaki shot Kyoya an irritable look. “Of course, if we had not been able to borrow this furniture, we would have spared no expense!”

Haruhi rolled her eyes. “And you couldn’t have just gone to IKEA like the rest of us?”

“What’s that?” one of the less-timid girls asked, blinking at Haruhi in a horribly puzzled way.

“Some commoner thing,” Hikaru and Kaoru chorused as they slouched up arm in arm. They both had paint in their hair. 

Kyoya pulled out his phone, typing rapidly. “I believe it’s a furniture store,” he said mildly. “One that’s quite popular for its cheap but aesthetically pleasing and space-saving products.”

“Do you go there frequently, Haruhi dear?” Tamaki asked, elevating one eyebrow. 

Haruhi shrugged, uncomfortable with the sudden attention. “Uh, yeah,” she said. “Like I said, it’s cheap. You get to wander around for hours and see some neat stuff, and then they have a cafeteria where you can get food before you go home.”

“It sounds much more fun than a mall, huh, Kyo-chan!?” Honey said, tugging on Kyoya’s sleeve with a smile that was far too sly for being the cute host. Haruhi had no idea how all six boys had mastered the trick of suddenly appearing like that, but she’d given up trying to understand.

Kyoya removed his arm from Honey’s grip, dusting himself off. “That was not my fault,” he said with intense dignity. “I told Tamaki that I did not wish to go out.”

“Still, it was not a fun day for all of us,” Tamaki pouted.

Haruhi glanced at Kyoya, who was looking at her. She smiled at him and shrugged. What could you do about Tamaki? She’d had a good time, anyway. Kyoya flashed an inscrutable smile before looking back down at his phone.

Mori came up behind Haruhi, placing one hand lightly on her shoulder. “Perhaps Haruhi would be willing to take us to IKEA,” he said. 

There was a moment of frozen silence—had Mori really just been the one to instigate an adventure?—but then Tamaki began to grin. 

Haruhi’s stomach dropped into her shoes and she planted her face firmly in her hands. “NO,” she said loudly, but no one heard her.

She peeked through her fingers. Tamaki launched himself into the air, alighting on the sofa with an ominous creak. “It’s settled!” he proclaimed. 

“Nothing is settled, Senpai!” Haruhi tried to say, but Tamaki wasn’t listening.

He raised his fist in the air, and for a moment he seemed to shine with heroic light and trumpets seemed to sound a glorious fanfare. “Haruhi will take us on a tour of that greatest commoners’ amusement park, IKEA!”

***

The Host Club was lost in IKEA and it wasn’t Haruhi’s fault.

“One would think that following the arrows would take us to the exit…” Kyoya said contemplatively, staring at a map. “Yet every turn only seems to make things worse. Are you certain we’re following the correct path?”

“If you’d just listened to me, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Haruhi said, banging her forehead into a convenient wall. 

Tamaki held up a pillow and poked at it experimentally. “This pillow is remarkably soft for being so cheap,” he said. He held it out to Haruhi. “Here, feel it!”

Haruhi took the pillow and set it back on the display rack. “It’s just a pillow, Senpai.”

“Where did Hikaru and Kaoru go?” Honey asked, wandering up with his arms full of toys. Mori, silent and stoic as usual, was behind him pushing a cart full of plush animals. Haruhi frankly wasn’t sure how they’d gotten so many toys, considering that the children’s section was all the way at the other end of the showroom.

“I don’t know, Honey-senpai,” Haruhi said. She glanced around. Oh, dammit. Hikaru and Kaoru were nowhere in sight, which could only mean total calamity.

“I’m sure the twins are fine, Haruhi,” Tamaki said, draping his arm over her shoulders. “They surely can’t have gone very far!”

Haruhi heaved an enormous sigh. “We’ve been in here for two hours. They could be anywhere!”

Kyoya folded the map neatly and tucked it into his pocket. “Knowing the twins, they went to Småland so they could watch movies,” he said. 

Honey’s mouth dropped open with comic indignation. “I wanna watch movies too!”

“It’s past your naptime, Mitsukuni,” Mori remonstrated. 

“We should really find the twins and go, guys,” Haruhi said. She looked at Mori for support—he was usually her best bet. But he was busy picking Honey up and settling him in the cart among the stuffed animals. 

Tamaki looped his arm through Haruhi’s. “Lead on!” he cried. 

Haruhi reached over, yanked the map out of Kyoya’s pocket, and rustled it open to stare at the zigzagging floor plan. “Just follow the arrows, Senpai,” she said dolefully. 

Arm in arm, they made their way toward Småland with Kyoya, Mori, and Honey in tow. Haruhi was really terribly glad that she had hold on Tamaki’s arm, because she was afraid that if she let go he’d once again transform into a furniture-commentating monster that would forever haunt her nightmares. Kyoya’s occasional comments were usually funny; Mori was quiet as usual; and it seemed that Honey had actually fallen asleep in the cart, clutching a fluffy panda. With Tamaki strolling beside her, softly humming one of the latest songs from the new pop idol group STARISH, Haruhi could almost pretend that this was normal.

They arrived in Småland without incident, taking the elevator down to the first floor with their cart. It was a play place, really, occupied by many small children, a few overtired employees in yellow and blue and khaki, and two redheaded boys sitting in front of a large TV screen.

“There you are!” Tamaki cried, breaking away from Haruhi to vault over the low plastic gates toward the twins. “Poor Haruhi nearly died of fear for you!”

“Really, boss?” Hikaru asked, turning and raising an eyebrow. 

Kaoru leaned his chin on Hikaru’s shoulder, batting his eyelashes. “Are you sure you weren’t the worried one?”

“You didn’t need to worry,” Hikaru murmured, twining his fingers delicately with Kaoru’s. “We were together.”

“Just like always,” Kaoru breathed, turning to stare tragically into Hikaru’s eyes.

Haruhi couldn’t take it anymore. She leaped over the fence and shoved her way in between them, pushing them apart. “There are CHILDREN here!” she yelled.

Hikaru rolled his eyes. “We weren’t doing anything, Haruhi,” he said.

“Yeah, we weren’t doing anything,” Kaoru parroted.

Haruhi glared at them. “Do even less,” she said.

The employees were starting to look at them strangely—a quartet of tall high school students in the middle of a toddler play place?—so Haruhi chivvied the boys out posthaste. 

“It’s noon,” Kyoya said cheerfully as they came back to the cart. “Time for lunch!”

***

Haruhi always forgot how big the IKEA cafeteria was. There were plenty of seats and plenty of places where she and the Host Club could sit without disturbing every other person in the room. 

By the time they arrived, Honey had woken up. “I want cake! I want cake!” he cried from the cart, gazing with huge eyes at the vast glass dessert case. 

“The Swedish flag cake roll is pretty good,” Haruhi said, pointing to the yellow-and-blue spiral cakes. She didn’t normally encourage Honey in his sugar addiction, but it was a weekend and she thought that cake sounded pretty good right now too.

“Such interesting food! I’ve never tasted lingonberries,” Tamaki said. He hovered around the cases, tilting his head this way and that in order to see it all better. 

Kyoya, of course, was already at the counter ordering. Haruhi could see what they were putting on his tray—the most expensive menu items, of course, nothing but the best—and she felt suddenly a little nervous. The twins were also getting expensive things, and there went Mori and Honey, and now—

She plunged her hand into her pocket, hoping that there would actually be something. It would be so awkward to have to turn down lunch. Maybe she could do the chicken tenders?

Tamaki’s hand closed gently on Haruhi’s wrist. “Don’t worry about it, Haruhi,” he said, so quietly that she almost couldn’t hear him over the noise of the cafeteria. 

Haruhi saw red. “I don’t need you to pay, Senpai,” she snapped, pulling away from him. “I’m not a charity case!”

“I know,” Tamaki said. He smiled at her. “But you’ve been very patient with all of us today, despite our antics. Truly, you have been nothing short of a perfect host. I feel it’s only right to show my appreciation for your gallantry by treating you to lunch.”

“Oh,” Haruhi said. She glanced down at the small change in her hand, and then slipped it back into her pocket. “Um. Okay.”

Tamaki held out a hand. “Shall we?” he asked.

Haruhi rolled her eyes, but she took Tamaki’s hand anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> One more note: "STARISH" is from the anime Uta-No Prince Sama, with which my sister is utterly obsessed. 
> 
> As always, thank you to my beta reader. <3


End file.
